Blessings...

...no baby yet, so the biggest blessing is yet to come :-)

But at my appointment on Thursday, we had an OB who we really like. She had a c-section with her first, then 4 VBACs with her next children...so she is both supportive and understanding about the issues surrounding a VBAC. She wanted to know how sure we were of my due date - if we knew when conception was. I explained to her that I was still nursing, and had no idea when conception was, as my cycles were still so irregular. (She told me she actually tandem nursed with a few of her children, which was cool, because that's not exactly a mainstream concept!) She was able to strip my membranes, and said I am 75% effaced and the cervix is very soft - 2.5 cm dilated still. The baby's head was nice and low again.

So she went to talk to Dr. Taylor, the head OB, and came back and said we could schedule an induction for either Monday or Friday. We first said, "Friday, like tomorrow?!" No, she meant NEXT Friday - as in, I'll be 42 weeks and 5 days next Friday! We were shocked. That would not happen in most hospitals, but she was very relaxed about it. She is also of the opinion that this baby isn't a gigantic one, definitely not in the 10lb range like Graeme was (who knows, really, but, hey!) so they're comfortable letting me go that long.

We *almost* went with Monday, but are still convinced that it is much better to let my body go into labor on its own as opposed to induction, so we set it up for Friday. She told me to pig-out on Thanksgiving dinner and come in at 5am on Friday morning :-) (She's the attending OB both Monday and Friday. We'd love to have her deliver our baby!)

The membrane sweep caused me to have contractions 5 min. apart for 2 hours early Friday morning - I called labor and delivery, assuming they would want me to come in, but they said to wait to see if they got any closer together...and sure enough, I went back up to bed and they faded off. I was disappointed - thought that was "it" for sure!

So I am continuing to learn that if your body is not ready for labor, nothing you do can force it to "go". As Ivy said in a comment recently (I loved this!), God has the baby's birthday picked out...and He's the only one!

I continue to have spouts of prodomal labor...it can be quite intense, which tends to get me excited. So I'm striving to basically ignore anything, so as not to exhaust myself!

I can't imagine what it's like to go into labor early, or to not have any contractions until, boom, it's the real thing!

I told Mark that with our next baby, I'm going to determine what I think the due date is, then add 2 weeks to that date! That way I don't stress myself or anyone else out about being "late". LOL!

I'm not "late". I'm exactly where my body is designed to be. So we wait, with expectation that God will continue to lead and provide.

Oh, and my doula decided to cancel her out-of-town Thanksgiving plans just to be available for my possible induction on Friday! I didn't expect her to make that choice, but was very grateful, as we really have a nice connection, and Mark and I both feel really comfortable with her. That was just an added blessing!